Didn’t this exact same thing happen in ~1973? I had a school friend who died in a bus going off the highway.

Having endured Peruvian buses I’m honestly surprised this doesn’t happen more often. Taking the bus from Agua Caliente up to Macchu Picchu over switchback angler switch back was one of the hairiest experiences of my entire life. Every time your side of the bus is at the drop you can’t see ground looking out of the window

That gave me anxiety just reading your description. Is there any safer way to get to Machu Picchu?

You either do a few hours train ride from Cuszco and then the bus ride, or you take the Inca trail which is a four day stroll

If you're going up from Agua Caliente you could hike up the stairs which cut through the switchbacks described. It's a tough climb (1200ft worth of stairs if I recall) and best started super early in the day.

Probably safer to just skydive with a fishnet parachute.

Damn

Having ridden a motorcycle through central and South American and seeing the number of buses at the bottom of ravines, I’m surprised we don’t see more stories like this.

For sure, bus is full of goats and chickens too. When I was there, there was a crazy old lady ranting in quechua at us, had no idea what she was on about but it felt like she was casting some sort of a spell on us

We've all seen the pictures of those mountain roads. Fucking nope.

This was inevitable, unfortunately.

If you think that was scary, try the Death Road in Bolivia on bold tires while the bus driver is drinking beer.

Hike it. Way more fun to retrace the foot paths of the Incas and the reward when you first see Manchu Picchu as the trail opens up to a magnificent valley is breathtaking.

Sorry to hear that, but I expect it's happened many time since too.

The bus ride up to Machu Picchu was one of the scariest experiences I’ve ever had. Some of the roads in Peru aren’t necessarily in the best of shape

I have taken the bus down after hiking in and didn’t find it that scary. The road was very well built. The road cutting through the Indian Himalayas on the other hand… 😰

"Traffic accidents are commong along Peru's roadways".

I have a story for this one! My uber driver was rear ended by a drunk guy on a motorcycle hauling a large cart with sacks of garlic. The drunk guy at first refused to acknowledge the accident and then tried to say that the uber driver hit him instead.

After a couple minutes of arguing, the uber driver was demanding payment, or to go to the police and all the drunk guy had to offer was a sack of garlic but he also kept saying no police. So the uber driver decides to snatch the drunk guy's phone as payment and take off. Drunk guy catches up and tries to grab his phone through the window, so uber driver rolls it up and says if he doesn't remove his arm, he will keep driving anyway. Drunk guy backed off, and we made it to our destination, but that was probably my craziest experience there.

All tires that take that road are bold.

The second day of that ‘stroll’ includes a 1200m climb over Dead Woman’s Pass

So glad I walked up there. The view was amazing!

There’s also a one-day hike over the last part of the trail. The train drops you off halfway to Agua and you walk the rest. My best memory of Peru was definitely walking through the Sun Gate and finally seeing the city.

I took the bus back from aguas calientes to cuzco, the fall was huge!

This is why I only took overnight buses while in Peru - I couldn’t see how scary and dangerous the roads actually were!

I guess it is best they have closed the site (or at least to climbing)

In the Andes, everyone's got some story about the rare event when a condor knocked some animals or farmers off the mountain.. watch your back!

A shaman's blessing?

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I didnt want to wait for the bus to go down so walked it. It's was an hour or two downhill.

I did this recently, there’s really no need to be that concerned. The road is actually well maintained and wide, it was totally fine imo. It’s the biggest tourist attraction in all of Peru and has proper funding.

You can actually hike it if you want though. It’s not a particularly interesting hike though since it’s right next to the road. There are much better hikes to take in Peru. I did the Salcantay pass while I was there and loved it.

Nah.. that bus ride up the mountain is sketch lol

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That was easy ride, you clearly missed the more exciting one’s!

Walk up, super easy and takes like about an hour. Did it many times.

Nepal has some fun ones as well.

I lived in a very small town in Cajamarca, which is a very mountainous state in the north. I would take a 6 hour bus ride from town to the capital city twice a month. The road going down these mountains were so narrow that if you looked down out the window you couldn’t even see the road, just 500 ft down the side of the mountain

Every month or so you’d hear about a car, taxi or bus going off the cliff somewhere. I am not surprised about this, only that this is hitting world news.

had a friend die in 2003 in a bus crash in south america. happened too often.

The beer is for the tires to make them bold.

And the driver in dark sunglasses. Did that in 85.

Is this a crash from where we've seen videos of big trucks/buses navigating despairingly narrow cliffside roads?

Example

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkVC6w7yzOc

Don't the local guides have a foot trace where they race each other up these switchbacks?

I wonder if there's any good longform dashcam footage of those twisty mountain drives. Most of the stuff on Youtube is garbage: heavily edited or Gopro footage with unnecessary music.

About 30 years ago, my friend pointed out to me that buses always "plunge" off cliffs in news stories. I've been noticing it ever since.

"In 2018, at least 30 people were killed when a bus tumbled down a cliff onto a rocky beach Tuesday along a narrow stretch of highway known as the "Devil's Curve,""

Great editing CBS News.

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I lived in Peru for a few years, scariest moments of my life were in those buses

That bus ride from Lima to Cusco had some sketchy sections.

Definitely up there in my list of top anxiety inducing moments, I’m generally even keeled

Its not inevitable, sketchy bus companies make drivers drive like maniacs. Greed is why this happens. When I was a kid preparing for school (20 years ago) this was on the news almost every day. Its not THAT common nowadays

Harriest<most harrowing

Holy shit I misread that title, I thought it was saying everytime a bus plunges off a cliff in Peru, 25 people die somewhere in Peru. I'm too high.

Well, you can take the train.

I had a friend hike it and its a several day trip. He came down with severe altitude sickness on the last day of the hike and had to leave on a bus so he never saw it.

He was also a very fit mountain climber.

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dang, too bad it wasnt a tesla

He was probably just dehydrated as it's not that high in elevation

Lol I noticed that too.

Well, it appears that the safest place to sit on these buses is…absolutely nowhere!

Aguas Calientes*

It is safe. These buses go up and down all day and never crash.

You still take the bus up to Machu Picchu if you take the train to Aguas Calientes.

Dear god, that apostrophe is hard to look at.

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Very scary concept for travel, I once winded down insane but navigable mountains and these videos are so far beyond. Terrifying, and without any control as a passenger. Brutal.

Machu* Picchu, not "Manchu"

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Man, this is sad. At my friends wedding, I got opportunity to dance with two girls from Lima. They were really cool. I always wanted to visit Peru and go to Machu picchu. I have a co worker from Peru.

I was on one of those buses several years ago with a bunch of classmates. We were all genuinely afraid this was going to happen to us. At times, it really looked like we were about to go over the edge. Sad that this happened, how tragic.

Same!!!! Went on the same route and felt exactly the same, much respect to the bus drivers who only have like a 1 foot margin of error

Actual safety == perceived safety, it just genuinely feels scary on that bus ride in my experience

Damn I took these buses in Peru and Bolivia. They drive like drunk maniacs on shitty roads created in the side of mountains with huge cliffs. Guard rails are rare in many places. In some of them there were old wrecks lying at the bottom of the cliff lol.

> switchback angler switch back

is this a typographical error?

you make it sound inevitable

I just took a luxury train 🤷🏻‍♂️

Very encouraging name

I feel as Rainbow Mountain gets more popular, this will be more common. That road of the main highway to the mountain was one of the scariest experiences I've ever had. We had a private driver with a car and I still felt like I was going to go over the edge. I can't imagine going on that road in a bus.

That was nothing compared to the road going to Rainbow Mountain. I've never felt so close to death in my entire life.

I took Viva airlines from Lima to Cusco, also a top anxiety producing moment.

Same in Ecuador. Ripping around the mountains in Ecuador, next to small cars, no guard rails, ect. I was fascinated how they don’t have this happen every day

Greed is eternal.

1200ft really isn't all that much height gain, should be under an hour for anyone reasonably fit? Or is there just way more to it than just stairs?

We took the Inca Trail with a guide company (mandatory in Peru). 3 nights/4 days. Manchu Picchu is awesome but the hike there made the trip worth it. Certain sections are straight out of Indiana Jones. You also see MP from the Sun Gate prior to and at sunrise, which isn't accessed by the group's that don't enter using the Inca trail. ...but yeah, agree with above, all the tour buses are insane - not just to MP. Unfortunately, there's a number of these accidents every year.

The way I read the headline in my head made me sound like a horrible fking person

El condor pasa

Not if the greedy person's get kicked out regularly. It's basically easy. Just open the window and kick them out

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’

I think they meant 12,000ft.

Nepal's are scary but from what I've read recently the north yungas road (death road) in Bolivia is arguably one of if not thee most dangerous road in the world. It looks beautiful but also insane even compared to some Nepalese roads.

Yeah, if you start from 3000 ft below sea level.

It’s still a very easy level trek

It’s a long walk up but not hard. I’m a computer nerd with pretty much no workouts in my day to day life and I did it twice.

Wayna Picchu on the other hand…. Daaaaaamn!!

It looks like it was written by a chat bot… that random mention at the bottom of the political climate which has nothing to do with the crash news…

Isn’t that like 100-120 flights of stairs? That sounds like a lot of upward height gain to me.

I hiked a trail that had like 800 feet gain in about 45 minutes and that was considered “moderate” already.

Jesus it's still like walking up 100-120 flights of stairs. Certainly not nothing

I remember the ride back from the train station to Cusco was sketchy. It was dark and for some reason I was sitting shotgun with the bus driver. I remember he had a picture of some saint hanging from the mirror and he kept praying and touching it. It was through some mountain pass and he kept having to flash his lights and honk the horn when he rounded the corners. The driver for sure was terrified of this road. My family in the back had no idea

you do a taxi from Cusco

train from Olyntatambo

if you've never been in the Andes for a week from sea level you dont know what you're talking about

Use your legs if you can

My mom's cousin died this way around that time as well. It happens often unfortunately.

The article claims the accident happened outside of Lima... Yeah, 1000 km from Lima on the last leg of a long journey on a winding road shared by hundreds of little Tuk Tuk trikes and crazy drivers. After travelling around Peru last year I realized how much I take my north american roads for granted.

What I got from their comment is it’s improved over time. Which doesn’t sound like something inevitable.

That's just f****** horrible!

> What I got from their comment is it’s improved over time.

Well... if it isn't perfect, then it going to happen eventually, or some might say inevitably.

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Right. In that case: having a goat as the president of the US at some point is inevitable.

Not really the same thing, though. What I'm saying is, if something has a 0.00000001% chance of disaster (ie. bus off a cliff, airplane crash, car crash), that happens given enough time.

It's a lot. And their steep. Once you get up though it isn't over, the climb through is a chore also. I hiked up the mountain also, that was something else.

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I see. So a passenger plane crashing directly into the US president (who may or may not be a goat) is inevitable.

Sure, if there is any chance of that happening, you could describe that to be inevitable given enough time and repetition.

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I'll take that as a "no".

Cool debating style btw! Very cultured.

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Ecuador and Peru have very dangerous buses

I second this guys, I Lived in Ecuador, in the Andes region the bus drivers drive like absolute maniacs and this is not an exaggeration, I repeat not an exaggeration, it’s nothing to do with the roads they are wide and well paved for the most part, I literally thought I was going to die more than once on those buses, don’t believe me go for yourself then you’ll come back and say the same thing

Allow me my pedantry for a minute.

AMS is most commonly felt above 8k feet. Machu Picchu is lower than that. Not saying it's impossible as some people are more sensitive, but if someone is mountain fit...they can handle that I'd imagine.

I have climbed a few mountains higher than that from sea level living in the PNW, so I have an idea of what I'm talking about. Also elevation is elevation. Also, just Google it and you'll see it's 50/50 for untrained people.

It was a 2 day excursion so no doubt it's brutal regardless of fitness but AMS is a specific thing. General exertion/dehydration is more likely here

And just like that, we've made the word "inevitable" meaningless. Because every single thing that is theoretically possible is now inevitable.

My first thought having never traveled but seen many videos of daredevil shit like that

I thought that route was one of the safest bus rides I had the whole time I was in Peru 😅 I took a different one where we took a construction detour and we forded a river and took a bunch of switchbacks down a mountain so tight he had to keep backing up to make it round.

User doesn’t understand the scale here. Or altitude involved. It’s like the uneducated saying it ain’t so bad outside a submarine at max depth.

Maybe you did it a long time ago and it’s been improved since then?

The buses were more modern than an American school bus where I grew up and less narrow/dangerous than California route 1. I’m honestly very confident that most people would not find it sketchy.

That one's fine.

Machu Picchu is closed right now for anyone wondering due to unrest in the Sacred Valley.

That road is one of the safer ones. It is well-maintained to protect the tourists. The roads out to the Manu park are dirt and have frequent washouts. No guardrails, no pavement. Just a sheer drop-off into the jungle and rivers below.

This is the way

Try doing 1 hour at your gym's stairmaster and tell us how you feel. Then imagine doing that in higher altitude.

My family used to take trips like this every year. It's pretty safe honestly.

Why are people downvoting this person when they're right?

Then drive a car instead. It's not anywhere bad like you're believing the media.

I literally opened this post to see if it happened on the way to Machu Picchu. It's the first time I ever just closed my eyes and kept telling myself that the driver does this all the time. Terrifying lol.

Your comparator only shows up correctly when replying for some reason. You can use != Instead which means the same thing in programming.

I don’t give a fuck about your perception. Your perception of the road up to MP which is so tame that I among with probably a hundred other people hiked straight up through the middle of the switchbacks (whoa some cliffs huh?!) to get to the top in the pitch dark tells me you haven’t experienced much. It’s honestly laughable. If you want a debate about perception r/philosophy is that way ->

It has meaning when you're talking about the lives of people. Calling inevitable a meaningless word is trivialising all of the people who die in accidents like this.

“For unknown reasons”. ??? Everyone drives overly confident, careless, reckless on horrible and unsafe roads. Amazing this isn’t a daily headline.

I’ve been on that trip myself and for me it was sketch.

As a Peruvian myself, I'd be a lot more sketched out by the robbers and criminals that rob at gun-point, rather than a mountain drive.

I understand that we have a different level of what’s “sketch” and what isn’t- and I agree that getting robbed at gunpoint would terrify me a lot more. I was just sharing my thoughts and experience. I did love your country and the people that I met in both Lima and Cusco. Can’t wait to go back and see the cats at the park.

El Condor Pushy

A bigger news story is that any bud in Ecuador or Peru doesn’t flip off a cliff in every single drive

Sounds like Manitou Incline

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> Manchu Picchu

I think it might be the reply doesn't contribute to the idea that the post is trying to make and minor mistakes are forgivable if we understand the point of the message. At worst, the OP has revealed a fixation they have with Manchu Wok. Just a guess though.

Driver ignored the shouts to “El Alto!!” And caused a bunch of ruptured Organos. S/. Seriously though, Terrible tragedy. People just trying to get where they need to go and this happens to them. So sad.

https://i.imgur.com/pZn2uuV.jpg

This is the road from Chachapoyas to Cajamarca i rode on three weeks ago. There is about a 9,000 foot drop just past the edge of the road. We got out while our driver went around the landslide.

At some point you just have to enjoy the scenery and assume your driver isn’t going to drive you off the many, many cliffs.

Cajamarca to chachapoyas is the most terrifying paved road I’ve been on in my life.

I was sure this would happen to me, those bus drivers race up and down horrifyingly thin roads next to cliffs near Cusco.

Non fit video gamer here. It was fine, had a little lightheadedness, coca tea fixed that. It really wasn't that big of a deal. It was fun to exert and have your breaths not recover you as much as you're used to, but you adapt.

Elevation is a problem too right?

It’s also at a high elevation to start, so you feel short of air until you aclámate.

I’ve heard. I lived in the South of the province of Cajamarca so never made it north of Cajamarca City.

Mountain roads + cliffs + buses …

Riding motorcycles through the mountains of Peru in 2017/2018 was terrifying. Every driver would come around corners in our lane, going way too fast. It was like everyone had a death wish.

Not really. When you leave Cusco you're over 10kft. It's about 8k at Machu, maybe 10k at the very very top. It's an amazing place. The town though can be kinda rough as it's jam packed with tourist all the time.

https://imgur.com/a/OrgPto6

I can attest to this

Machu Picchu is at around 8k ft elevation. Cuzco is a little short of 12k.

I see

so the old " I didnt suffer so it must be this " routine

Ah. I stand corrected. Got meters and feet mixed up. Still 8k isn't too bad if you're healthy. Cusco kicked my butt but I was fine hiking Machu Picchu.

When I took the bus to Machu Picchu I had about 7 hours of anxiety that this was going happen to me, then 7 more hours of anxiety on the way back to Cusco. Those roads are the craziest thing I’ve ever seen in my life!

Take the train! It cost more money but it way safer! And faster.

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The roads around Cajamarca itself weren’t that bad. It was like ‘I might live if the car goes off the cliff’ versus ‘there will be a Micheal bay explosion when I eventually hit the bottom’

Lol, I spend a fair amount of time in the mountains, I know from experience that on a reasonable trail (certainly worse than something resembling stairs) I'll average about 500m/hour altitude gain if I'm not pushing too hard, and I'm not by any means seriously fit (I have a largely titanium spine following a paragliding accident a couple of years back). A 1200ft ascent I could take my 70 year old dad up no problem.

Looking it up, it's at about 2400m, so a 1200ft/400m ascent at those altitudes should be easy for all but the most couch potato of redditors.

I spend a lot of time in the mountains, 1200ft/hour would be pretty poor in terms of altitude gain hiking. At 3000m if you're not acclimatised it's probably not far off.